How will Kansas rebound from blowout home loss to Texas? Answer will come at TCU
Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self doesn’t think Saturday’s 84-59 blowout loss to Texas will have a long-lasting, negative impact on the No. 6-ranked Jayhawks’ season.
“It’s a big deal,” Self said of the Texas game, “but not anything that’s earth-shattering or we can’t recover from if we take care of business.”
In fact ... “If we can’t recover from this, we are the softest group of all time. This is what happens in sports — (to) everybody — so I can’t believe that our guys won’t respond,” Self added in a Monday video call with reporters held in advance of Tuesday’s game against TCU (9-2, 2-1 Big 12). Tipoff is 9 p.m. at Schollmaier Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. It will be shown live on ESPN.
The loss to No. 4-ranked Texas — which tied for KU’s worst-ever defeat in its tradition-rich building — dropped KU to 8-2 overall and 2-1 in Big 12 play.
“We can get better from this. It’s one game out of 26. We’ve got to look at it that way. You can’t put too much emphasis on something. I’d much rather win two close games and lose one big one than the reverse,” Self said, adding, “the most important thing is minds and legs are as fresh as possible going into the next game.”
The Jayhawks will be without backup combo guard Bryce Thompson (back injury) and may be without senior point guard Marcus Garrett on Tuesday, Self said. Garrett was hit in the head late in Saturday’s loss and has been monitored for concussion-like symptoms.
“It’s still day-to-day. There’s no guarantee he’ll play tomorrow. Also if he holds up well today there’s a good chance he will (play),” Self said, indicating Garrett is “pretty good (health wise).”
If Garrett can’t go, red-shirt freshman point guard Dajuan Harris “may play 40 (minutes) in that particular situation. His role would be impacted in a favorable way for him. We hope to have both. If we don’t it’s what we’ll do,” Self said of going with Harris.
The Jayhawks players who are healthy sound as if they are raring to get back on the court. They apparently are not shell-shocked after the crushing home defeat to Texas.
“Last year this happened around the same time with Baylor,” KU redshirt freshman wing Jalen Wilson said, drawing similarities between 2019-20 and 20-21.
Saturday’s 25-point defeat followed wins over ranked teams Texas Tech and West Virginia to open the Big 12 campaign. A year ago at this time, then No. 5 Baylor beat a 2-0 KU team by 12 points in Allen Fieldhouse. At the time that loss tied for the worst home defeat in the 18-year Bill Self era.
History shows KU followed the Baylor setback with a victory at Oklahoma — a victory that opened a 15-game win streak to close KU’s 2019-20 league championship season.
“That was brought up in the locker room (after Saturday’s game). The same thing happened,” senior forward Mitch Lightfoot said on Monday. “It (Baylor game) was Saturday, an 11 o’clock game. We thought about that. We realized, ‘Hey, last year’s team did it and bounced back well.’ If this team takes the same attitude and that same, ‘Hey we’ve got a chip on our shoulder now,’ I think we’ll be OK,” Lightfoot added.
It was senior Chris Teahan that brought up the fact last year’s Baylor defeat led to a response of 15 straight wins.
“He (Teahan) made sure we understood, ‘Hey it’s not the end of the world. Yes it sucks. Yes we need to improve on some things, but if we can all lock in and play our best basketball we have our best chance to succeed,” Lightfoot said.
This year’s KU team followed a 102-90 season-opening loss to No. 1 Gonzaga with eight straight wins, including four against ranked teams.
“The Gonzaga game, we were punched in the gut, no question, but we played the next day (win over St. Joseph’s) and it was so early in the season and we were able to get it back. We’ve competed really hard, really hard since then,” said Self.
“For whatever reason, that (Saturday) wasn’t the same team that competed at Texas Tech out there playing (against Texas). Because at Tech (58-57 KU victory), we didn’t play well, we just made sure they didn’t play well. You know Kentucky (65-62 KU win) we didn’t play well, we just made sure they didn’t play well. Creighton (73-72 win) we didn’t play great, just made sure they played a little worse than we did. The other day when we tasted our own blood we didn’t react well. When punched in the mouth against Gonzaga we reacted right.”
Wilson envisions the Jayhawks responding Tuesday in a positive way against a TCU team that’s won five games in a row.
“We’ve got to take care of business, learn from this and move on from this game. We can’t keep worrying about it, just move on and win on the road,” Wilson said.
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 3:08 PM with the headline "How will Kansas rebound from blowout home loss to Texas? Answer will come at TCU."
